Call to the Ft. Myers Bullpen

The first transaction of the season went down after this afternoon’s loss to the Boston Red Sox, with Ron Mahay rather unsurprisingly getting the nod. It was pretty clear when the Twins brought Mahay in late in Spring Training that they were looking at getting him into the big league bullpen, and the only reason he didn’t make the roster on opening day was that his arm just wasn’t ready to go. Four outings in Ft. Myers later, Mahay is primed for Major League action and joins the team. Also not a surprise, roster space for this transaction was cleared by moving Joe Nathan from the 15-Day to the 60-Day DL. That takes away the Twins freebie move, so if they decide they need to add another player to the roster later this year (say, Anthony Slama for instance), someone else will either have to get hurt or removed from the roster. How’s that arm feeling, Mr. Clay Condrey?

This move makes a tremendous amount of sense for the Twins. Alex Burnett, who now heads to Rochester, was simply not experienced enough to be given the ball in meaningful situations. Today’s chance to pitch the top of the 9th in a game where the Twins trailed by 3 runs was about as much glory as the guy was going to get. The result is that the Twins were essentially carrying a mop-up pitcher on the roster. Now, they at least have a useful situational lefty to bandy about.